Radeon HD 3870 512MB vs Radeon HD 5670

Intro

Compare all that to the Radeon HD 5670, which features a clock frequency of 775 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 1000 MHz. It also features a 128-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 40 nm design. It is made up of 400(80x5) SPUs, 20 TAUs, and 8 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 5670		61 Watts
Radeon HD 3870 512MB		106 Watts
	Difference: 45 Watts (74%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon HD 5670 should perform a little bit faster than the Radeon HD 3870 512MB in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 5670		64000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3870 512MB		57600 MB/sec
	Difference: 6400 (11%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 5670 is much (approximately 25%) better at anisotropic filtering than the Radeon HD 3870 512MB. (explain)

Radeon HD 5670		15500 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3870 512MB		12400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 3100 (25%)

Pixel Rate

If running with high levels of AA is important to you, then the Radeon HD 3870 512MB is the winner, and very much so. (explain)

Radeon HD 3870 512MB		12400 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 5670		6200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 6200 (100%)

Please note that the above 'benchmarks' are all just theoretical - the results were calculated based on the card's specifications, and real-world performance may (and probably will) vary at least a bit.

Price Comparison

Specifications

Memory Bandwidth: Memory bandwidth is the largest amount of information (measured in MB per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface in one second. It's worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR type memory, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed per second. This is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the video card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics chip could possibly write to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel fill rate also depends on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.